“I was trying to hide”: When ‘Ross’ David Schwimmer revealed how fame from Friends affected his life

Friends changed the lives of its six leads overnight. When the sitcom premiered on NBC in 1994, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer became household names.

Their popularity only grew over the years, with multiple reruns of the show around the world. But with fame, the actors ended up losing the perks of a normal life. In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, David Schwimmer talked about how difficult it was for him to adapt to his new life after the success of Friends.

He revealed that as an actor, he liked to observe people, and before the sitcom, he could do that easily. But after becoming an overnight sensation, he could not figure out how to observe people silently, as wherever he went, fans surrounded him:

“I realized after a while that I was no longer watching people; I was trying to hide. So I was trying to figure out: How do I be an actor in this new world, in this new situation? How do I do my job? So that was tricky.”

David Schwimmer once talked about how fame from Friends messed up his personal life

Apart from the hardships he faced while observing people being celebrities, David Schwimmer also struggled with his relationships due to fame. The actor described the whole experience as jarring and revealed in his interview:

“It was pretty jarring and it messed with my relationship to other people in a way that took years, I think, for me to kind of adjust to and become comfortable with.”

“As an actor, the way I was trained, my job was to observe life and to observe other people, and so I used to walk around with my head up, and really engaged and watching people. The effect of celebrity was the absolute opposite: It made me want to hide under a baseball cap, not be seen.”

Schwimmer further explained that, though success did not change him personally, people started treating him differently. He attributed the fame to being a television actor, who is often seen as approachable:

“I didn’t feel like my character had changed, but suddenly people were treating me in a very, very different way, that sometimes was flattering, but mostly very evasive.”

“Because you are in their home. There’s something very approachable about actors on television, and I think especially in a half-hour comedy, where there’s something very comforting about it.”

Schwimmer played the role of Ross Geller across all 10 seasons of Friends. His portrayal of the dinosaur-loving paleontologist who’s always having bad luck in love impressed fans across the globe. His on-and-off relationship and chemistry with Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel also became a highlight of the show.

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Following the conclusion of Friends, Schwimmer has been seen in shows like The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Feed the Beast, Will & Grace, Intelligence, and Goosebumps. His film credits include The Laundromat, Little Death, The Iceman, John Carter, Nothing but the Truth, and Big Nothing.

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